Posts In The “Destinations” Category
Camp Muir is the main base camp for Mt. Rainer ascents and, at altitude 10,188 ft (3,075 m), is the mountain’s highest point accessible without a climbing permit. Reaching the camp, named after famed naturalist John Muir, requires a 4.4-mile (7 km) trek with an altitude gain of 4,639-ft (1,413 m), much of it across the…
“Why are you going to Burlington?” the Niagara Falls Canada Customs officer asked, somewhat dubiously, after we stated our plan to spend the following night there before returning back home to Seattle. “The night life”, we joked, before giving the actual reason of attending a friend’s birthday party. Burlington, a small community of just under…
The Great Mayan Reef is the second largest in the world, stretching 700 miles (1,126 km) along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. After diving the reef during a day-trip to Honduras as part of a Caribbean cruise, we returned a few months later to spend a long weekend diving in Cozumel. An island off the coast…
We had a memorable start to the year with a fabulous holiday season cruise to South Georgia to take in the region’s diverse and striking wildlife. Our cruising plans for Dirona had long included a visit there to view Ernest Shackleton’s grave in Grytviken, but we just didn’t get that far south. Snowshoeing at the…
We’ve always enjoyed live music and this year an unusually large number of bands we like were touring. Live concerts we saw included: Collective Soul, Eddie Vedder, Shinedown, Bush, The Offspring, and Black Stone Cherry. When Jennifer finally got James to drop his “no musicians over age 70” rule, we also caught great shows by…
When James was scheduled for a four-day business trip to attend a conference in Manhattan following a holiday long weekend, we decided to turn the visit into two distinct trips. The first was to lower Manhattan the weekend before the conference, where we stayed at the Casa Cipriani overlooking New York Harbor. The hotel is…
Los Angeles’ Broadway Theater and Commercial District is the historic core of downtown of the city and is known for its architecturally ornate theaters and department stores. By 1931 the area had the highest density of theaters in the world, with seating capacity for 15,000 viewers, and the many department stores made it the main…
The Maldives in southern Asia are known for their dozens of luxury resorts, most occupying a private island, that are scattered across the country’s 1,192 islets in 26 atolls. The scarcity of land on these islets prompted the Maldives hospitality industry to pioneer the concept of water villas, where accommodations extend out over the water…
With over 80 breweries in the metropolitan area, Portland, Oregon has a wonderful craft beer scene. The city straddling the Willamette River also is very walkable, and has some 400 pieces of public art to enjoy along the way. We always enjoy our visits there, so when James had some Friday business meetings in nearby…
Snoqualmie, Washington is a small town with much to offer. Best known for its proximity to Snoqualmie Falls, the 19th-century lumber town in 2010 started a major revitalization project. Today appealing downtown Snoqualmie is lined with restaurants and shops and also is home to the Northwest Railway Museum, which operates heritage railway rides. We’d several…
Westport is a small Washington coastal town whose observation tower, perched at the Pacific Ocean’s edge, is one of the best storm-watching locations in the state. The maritime town also has the largest marina on the Pacific Northwest outer coast, with room for 500 boats. We’d long been considering a visit there, and finally did…
The annual MARS conference, hosted by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is a cross-domain event aimed at sharing ideas across the rapidly growing fields of Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space. Hands-on learning and emerging technology demonstrations form the majority of the invitation-only event, with opportunities for attendees to meet and learn from each other. MARS…
We’d both been to Washington D.C. before, but had never spent much time the National Mall area. So when a business trip brought James to Rockville, Maryland we opted to spend the previous weekend in the capital. In a busy couple of days, we attended a Capitals NHL game, visited the National Air and Space…
Santa Barbara’s spectacular botanical garden Ganna Walska Lotusland was the former estate of Polish opera singer Ganna Walska and is considered one of the top ten botanical gardens in the world. The 37-acre (15 ha) garden contains over 3,500 different plants from around the world, many quite rare. Similar species are grouped together to form…
Tel Aviv’s historic Old Jaffa neighborhood was founded more than 4,000 years ago, and is one of the oldest port cities in the world. Over the centuries a virtual Who’s Who of civilizations and leaders have conquered and ruled the city, ideally perched on the Mediterranean Sea, including the Egyptians, Alexander the Great, the Greeks,…
We’ve spent many nights at Granville Island in Vancouver over the years, all of them in our first boat on the public dock managed by the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires. The little-known gem was right below Bridges restaurant, where we enjoyed many meals, and steps from the excellent public market. Moored at Granville Island in…
After three busy days in South Georgia, the Silver Endeavour sailed for Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Elephant Island is where Ernest Shackleton’s crew was stranded on a bleak and inhospitable small beach while their captain and five others made a treacherous 17-day, 800-mile journey across…
Departing the Falklands, we traveled 900nm over three nights to reach our first stop in South Georgia at Elsehul. Here we toured the area by tender, sighting a large rockhopper penguin rookery perched on the cliffs, and hundreds of baby and adult seals. Among them was a relatively rare blonde Leucistic fur seal. Not quite…